The Cure — Songs of a Lost World (Deluxe)
By Yusuf Qureshi
The deluxe edition arrives one year after the original. The surprise is how much the new material adds.
When The Cure released Songs of a Lost World in late 2024, after sixteen years without a studio album, it was received as a graceful return rather than an urgent one. The eight-song record was long by modern standards, slow by any standard, and anchored by two of Robert Smith's finest extended songs in thirty years. Critics loved it. Fans loved it harder. The deluxe reissue, released this month, extends the record by four tracks and reframes the entire project.
The new songs
The four additional tracks were recorded during the original 2019-2023 sessions and set aside, Smith has said in interviews, because they didn't fit the thematic unity of the final sequence. On the deluxe they are presented as a four-track EP positioned between the original album's first half and second half, where their function becomes clearer.
"Winter Train" is the strongest of the four — a nine-minute Robert Smith special, built on a glacial Simon Gallup bassline and a Reeves Gabrels guitar part that circles like a weather pattern. It would have been a highlight on Disintegration. On this record, it functions as a mid-album stabilizer.
"A Letter from the Future" is a two-and-a-half-minute acoustic sketch that would have been forgettable on its own. In context, it works as a bridge between the album's two halves. "The Mountain" and "Second Attempt at a Life" are both proper songs, properly produced, and both would have found a place on any Cure record of the last twenty years. They are not throwaways.
The remaster
Oddly, the remaster is more aggressive than I expected. The low end is substantially more present. Smith's vocals have been pulled slightly forward in the mix. On "Alone" and "I Can Never Say Goodbye" — the album's two monumental closing tracks — the effect is to make the songs feel more intimate rather than more cinematic. I don't know if I prefer this version, but it is a legitimate reinterpretation.
What this makes it
The deluxe is the version of Songs of a Lost World I will listen to from now on. The original was a reflective short novel. The deluxe is a reflective short novel with four extra chapters that make the structure more interesting. Not a reinvention. A reconsideration. The best Cure record since Wish, probably. 8.8.